edition starts right now. ♪ >> this is a fuse. in the case of iran's nuclear plans to build a bomb, a red line should be drawn right here. >> okay. first of all i have to say this. what's with the wile-e-coyote nuclear bomb? you really going to pretend -- you going to pretend that you don't know what a nuclear bomb looks like? you're israel. run downstairs and look in the basement. although if that is the sort of bomb we're dealing with i think i've got a pretty easy solution to this entire iran problem.

>> welcome to "morning joe." good morning. it's friday, september 28th. as you take a look at the capitol and here we are in washington, d.c. with us onset, political editor and white house correspondent for the huffington post, sam stein. he's also a big fan of sport fall. nbc news capitol hill correspondent kelly o'donnell and senior national correspondent for bloomberg business week and he has thrown a blizzard of bloomberg business week magazines all around the set. joshua green. in new york city msnbc and "time" magazine senior political analyst mark halperin and also the cohost of cnbc's "street signs" brian sullivan. we have a lot to talk about. mark halperin, if you're just waking up and you don't want to read the newspapers, it's

friday. you want to get ready to watch nfl games where they actually get the calls right and you just want to read one paragraph. that's why i'm here. i'm sort of the cliff notes for you today. mark, i want you to respond to this. charles krauthammer and "the washington post." charles, the patron saint of conservatives. the headline "go large, mitt." listen to this line. it makes you think how far ahead romney would be if he were actually running a campaign, but his unwillingness to go big, to go for the larger argument, is simply astonishing. and, mark, charles goes on to say what many conservatives have said over the past several weeks. he's behind and he continues to play small. >> he does, and he continues to have days that don't really amount to much. yesterday they had a sort of a veterans message and an economy message during events in virginia but they can't wait for just the debates.

i think conservatives want to see not just big events in terms of big ideas but big events that grab the nation's attention. the romney campaign is frustrated because they say all the press asks them about is process but that's par for the course and true in every campaign i've ever covered, the press will talk about process particularly polls. mitt romney, conservatives are waiting for him to be big in events, big in message, big in personality. it seems like right now the campaign is waiting for him to do that in the debates. >> mark, you know why they focus on process, because there's not substance to -- you know, it's funny, in 1988 facing a more hostile press george h.w. bush never once whined about process. you know why? because james baker told the press what they were going to be following. and he told the candidate what he was going to be doing. and every week the candidate did it. the message was unbelievable. but again, going on with charles krauthammer, for six months mitt

has been matching obama small ball for small ball. a hit-and-run critique here. this is important. a hit-and-run critique here, a slogan of the week there. that's what we've been saying. sam stein, there is no over arching message, no reagan message, no thatcher message, no george h.w. bush message in 1988. it's small ball. you have a libyan embassy blow up. you push him out the next morning and do something that even the romney campaign now understands was an absolute disaster. the president makes a faux pa about a bump in the road which was a stupid thing to say but they obsess over that. they say this is the message. this is how we're getting people back to work and change the economy clearly they're chasing after news headlines trying to win the day. >> that is a good way to put it. they're chasing.

>> but it's weird because you can argue they're racing after the wrong news headlines. for instance we spent a couple days obsessing over a 1980s or 1990s redistribution quote from obama right? that was the news of the day for the romney campaign at that time. we gave more attention to that than we did to the revifgs the gdp numbers or growth numbers that happened yesterday down from 1.7 to 1.3% growth. you would think in an ideal world for romney that would be a bigger story. the economy grew much slower in the second quarter than we thought. >> right. >> they put a lot more emphasis and push behind the redistribution quote which was old, sort of meaningless, didn't say much about obama. >> 1998. you're looking at the fact that over the last three months, kelly, you have jobs coming in at hundred dollar a hundred thousand per month. and they're chasing the headline of the day or they pull out a 1998 video. people don't care about that any more than they care about when

mitt romney stopped being ceo of bain capital. what they want to know is how the hell are you going to get me back to work? >> when you watch a romney event from beginning to end day after day as we do as students of this you will see the economic message but it is not the thing that rises to the surface. if they were able to stage bigger events that had an organic energy to them. >> right. >> that would drive a certain bleevlt that -- believability that he could win. >> sort of like where they go romney/ryan instead of ryan/ryan. >> exactly. people want to vote for the person they think will win. republicans typically do not get on their feet quite as much as democrats do. some of their events are so staid and sometimes business related events. >> you went to some sarah palin events. >> many. >> people get on their feet for sarah palin. >> they did for her.

>> they get on their feet for people they believe are true blue conservatives. they're just not excited about mitt romney. we have a lot of new polls out today, josh. i was saying a week ago they're 45 days, there's time to turn it around. there are debates. there are pictures today of people lining up in ohio to go vote. >> iowa. >> already opened up. >> in iowa. they're opening up next week in ohio on tuesday. >> virginia is already voting. >> virginia is already voting. guess what? you can tell i'm an old guy and i ran a decade or two ago. >> you got all the states and rules wrong. >> i got the rules wrong. thinking in terms of a 1980 campaign that is not the reality. look at the people lined up to vote. mitt romney has to turn this around now. >> the problem is that adds even more pressure. early on romney had multiple points to change the narrative in his favor. you know, wrapping up the nomination, picking his vice president. now we're down to the last one.

it's the debates. >> right. >> and that adds an enormous amount of pressure. >> because of the early voting, it's the first debate. he's got to turn it around the first debate and needs to keep people in the game the first debate. >> did you know mccain beat obama on election day in iowa and that obama got his margin of victory there strictly from early voting? they know that and they're doing it much more robustly this time around. >> the president is urging it on the stump. >> if you look at a state like iowa and which parties requested how many absentee ballots democrats requested a hundred thousand. republicans 16,000. so that gives you an inkling of the early voting and which way it is likely to go. >> i think it is really getting into that point that he has to turn it around by now. >> you know what? things can change overnight. >> they can. >> with a great debate performance. but again, mark halperin, time is running out. if you look at all of the polls, we've been seeing over the past couple weeks, mark, ohio, florida, the big swing states.

it seemed to be moving decidedly in the president's direction. let's look right now. i want you to give me your input on these states on a group of other battleground states we haven't looked at as closely. this comes from the nbc news/"wall street journal" marist poll. the president has a slim two-point lead among likely voters in north carolina. now where democrats held their national convention earlier this month, the president won this state in 2008 by less than 1%. mark, let's stop there and go state by state really quickly. north carolina, it wasn't too long ago that mitt romney had a big lead there. that's disappeared. and it's not because of the convention. >> well, i think it might be a little bit because of the convention. obviously there is the national poll as well. >> like i said, mark, it's not. go ahead. >> i'll tell you why i think it might be. the reason why david plouffe and others have been confident about north carolina and why they're in the game is they said they have the best ground game of any state. in 2008 one thing they did in north carolina, a lot of young

people was use social media to inform people about how to register, where to register, and in every one of these events that the first lady does and some of the other sursurrogatesd occasionally the president they focus on telling people here is how you register. go vote now. something might happen on election day to get you distracted. so romney people have been relying on enthusiasm. they know the ground game is not going to be as big. but that is a state where if you look at 47% and you look at the convention and you look at the momentum from the convention, they may be able to carry that through. it may not be a sugar high. it may not dissipate. >> i'll tell you what. ground game strong for the president in north carolina. i'll tell you what. i say this as a republican. if we lose north carolina, it's going to be a very long night for the party nationwide. the president also has a two-point advantage in nevada, mark. this is well within the margin of error. this seems like the state that could go either way. as i said, about harry reid in 2010, usually if it's close in nevada, and i learned this from

john ensign back in the 1990s, give it to the democrats, because that is one place where they can get the union voters out and if it's close, it always seems to tip in the democrats' favor. >> you got union vote. you've got hispanic vote very big there. on the other side, the governor, who is pretty popular, has not gone all out yet for mitt romney. he's endorsed him, obviously. you've got a big mormon vote there. and republicans have put a lot of their best operatives in the country in that state. so that could go either way. but that's one mitt romney must have at this point. >> all right. >> if you look at the different electoral college options and he is a little bit behind. >> a state that came into play and actually helped elect george w. bush, we hear a lot about florida but george w. bush wouldn't have been president without it. new hampshire. that's a state where mitt romney owns a home. the president right now owning a large lead again. that's changed a good bit over the past month. in all three states, mark, registered voters said the direction of the country had improved but the place where

that was most significant, new hampshire. in june there was a 20-point gap between wrong track and right track. that gap in this poll is just 7%. we're seeing that time and time again. and now let's go to virginia. another important state. mitt romney loses ohio, mark. i'm sure you agree with me he has to win virginia. and a new suffolk university poll out late last night shows actually the race much tighter than it's been. president obama only added mitt romney by two percentage points. and fascinating there. so how does all of this look, mark? >> well, look. it is right to not take any single poll and make a huge deal of it but there are some state polls like that batch from the virginia poll. if you saw it in a vacuum you'd say romney is in the game. i think if he has some good news, a good first debate, i

think the race will be significantly tighter than it's been and then they can move off just answering different versions of the same question every day, why are you so far behind, and have a chance to talk about things they want to talk about like the economy. but he is still behind in too many places to win and doesn't have as of today an obvious electoral college path and he is not going to make it up i don't think on the ground with enthusiasm anymore which is one thing they've been counting on. >> brian sullivan, let's bring you in as our money man. new polling from "the washington post" and the kaiser family foundations are gauging how the issue of medicare is factoring into the presidential race in three key states. i think these polls do more than anything to prove how this has been a substance free campaign on both sides. it's been a campaign according to mika brzenzski that has been a sign campaign. medicare is considered extremely

important for 50% of those polled and that makes a lot of sense. voters in those three states were also asked the question, what the medicare system would look like in the future. roughly 6 in 10 said the program should maintain the current system of benefits and that number peaked at 65%. one of the most stunning numbers to me, and it is unbelievably depressing, in this age of, you know, where simpson and bowles are running around the country trying to tell americans desperately what needs to be done to save this country from falling off a cliff financially, over 70% of voters in florida said, seniors in florida said that you don't have to cut medicare to take care of the debt. why do you even say that? >> please, cut my benefits. no one is going to say that, joe. you know that. >> how about please save my

country? no, no. but the question was asked, do you need to cut medicare to take care of the debt crisis? this is the largest program in america. it is unsustainable. everybody knows it's unsustainable. and most americans don't believe you have to touch medicare to take care of the deficit or the debt. >> listen, it's a numbers issue right? i'm a numbers guy. used to be 40 years ago that you had two people in america working to pay for every one retiree. now it's basically, you know, one worker paying for 10 to 20 different retirees because we've got this horrific demographic shift, 7500 people turning 60 every day. you're right. the numbers are unsustainable. what was interesting about your chart was this. i'll tell you what. the president is glad the election is only 39 days away. because yesterday kind of quietly, i don't want to get wonky, we had dismal economic data. we referenced it at the top. durable goods was terrible. boeing sold only one aircraft in august.

gdp was revised down. 25% of people, i can't remember the source of the poll, basically said they'll slow down spending because of the fiscal cliff issue. things are slowing down because people, smart viewers of "morning joe" and cnbc know that we're going to get the biggest tax hike in history if congress doesn't do something so the economy is starting to really turn so the president hopes that election speeds up. because if 55% of people say the economy is the most important thing that's what's on their mind. watch out, guys. this fiscal cliff thing is a big deal. it's coming up quick. >> hey josh. so you've got business owners that for a couple years have said we're not going to invest. we're going to keep the $3 trillion on the sidelines because we don't know what is going to happen as far as regulations go. are they going to be raising our taxes? now we have a third issue, third reason for business owners to be scared. what happens with the fiscal cliff? what happens when we go over the side of the cliff? what happens when you raise taxes and cut spending at the same time? i mean, it is a horrifying business climate that's going to only cause this economy to grind

to a halt more which, again, leads to the question, why is mitt romney losing? >> well, it is. the only real certainty is the fiscal cliff is not going to get decided before the election. one of the ironies is that for all this bad news if you look at consumer confidence, it actually shot up in the last few days since the democratic convention. >> right. >> so there's this weird thing going on where, you know, confidence is kind of defying the economic fundamentals in a way that helps the president. >> people are tired of feeling bad. they want to feel better. i'm struck by the fact that if we took a snap shot today, after this election you could have president obama with a second term. the democrats still holding the senate. and the republicans holding the house. >> right. >> nothing different. so why would we expect that there would be a different attitude toward the fiscal cliff or fixing these problems? will there be? i don't know. >> how about the republicans on the hill? >> i think there is an air coming out of this. though the things people complain about mitt romney we've known all along. he is not a warm and friendly guy. why people expected he would

become -- i mean that in a public not a personal sense. he is not the kind of pactism le politician people have come to expect. we knew that all along. i think there is real frustration that the times, from the republicans' point of view, have not generated a bigger bump for him. >> sam, obviously you've been in ohio on the ground campaigning and you've seen the same thing there among republicans on the ground, right? >> yeah. i mean, they're trying to generate the type of enthusiasm they need to counteract what obama has been doing for five years. keep in mind obama has been in the state for five years more or less. romney was only there from may on. obama has about a hundred offices in ohio. romney has about 40. they got to figure out how to get over that hurdle. just a sheer numbers game for them right now. i went to ten offices, five romney, five obama over one day to check it out. there is a lot of enthusiasm for romney. it's there. people want to work for him. >> is it for romney or against obama? >> that is a good point. i talked to one guy and said

what's animating you? he said i'm just scared about where my country is going to be. i went to an obama office and asked what is motivating you? she said i want to protect what obama has done. somewhat fearful on the romney side. >> fearful about another 40 years with this president and his policies. >> i'm not a psychologist. i wish i was but i don't know which is a greater motivator. you get a sense fear can bring you only so far and at some point you have to be for something else. >> exactly. all right. coming up, we've got former presidential candidate, former speaker newt gingrich. he's going to be with us onset. also senator mccaskill whose opponent last night said she just wasn't lady like enough. boy, that will help you with the swing voters in missouri. also former white house secretary dee dee myers and nbc news political director and soon to be former miami hurricanes fan chuck todd. up next "political playbook" and don't miss willie's week in

review. it will make your weekend in three minutes. first bill karins with a check of the weekend forecast. >> it's going to be a little transition, joe. we're watching rain moving through areas of new england and the mid-atlantic this morning making for a messy, slow morning commute especially in new england. then we'll slowly clear it out for much of the weekend. look at the radar this morning. this is a large covering shield of rain from the hudson valley of new york down through massachusetts, connecticut and pushing into areas of new hampshire. so it's going to be a wet morning for the kids at the bus stop and everyone else heading to work this morning. philadelphia south wards to d.c. and even new york city, hit and miss showers and storms this morning and another round of showers late today. definitely an umbrella day. we won't see a lot of sunshine. we are going to see beautiful weather for the ryder cup in areas of illinois today. should be gorgeous around chicago up in through michigan. texas very wet this weekend. one area we do need the rain we are going to get it, does look like it could wash out some weekend plans though san antonio to houston especially saturday and then toward new orleans as we go through sunday.

as far as new england goes the rain this morning will be gone for most of us as we go through the weekend with just hit and miss showers. definitely the worst of it this morning. airport delays possible new york city through logan airport. new york city wet in times square this morning. you're watching "morning joe" on this friday, we're brewed by starbucks. americans are always ready to work hard for a better future. since ameriprise financial was founded back in 1894, they've been committed to putting clients first. helping generations through tough times. good times. never taking a bailout. there when you need them. helping millions of americans over the centuries. the strength of a global financial leader. the heart of a one-to-one relationship. together for your future. ♪

let's look at the morning papers. we start with the "l.a. times." the man responsible for the antiislam film which sparked protests across the middle east is under arrest this morning in california. he's accused of violating the terms of his probation linked to a prior conviction on bank fraud and there you go, conservative

blo blogsphere your weekend is made. write your stories. overseas, you know, there are cops who have kids and it is probably not cool to call them nazis. you know. they've not killed 6 million jews, arrested a guy versus arresting a guy for violating his probation? i don't know. i don't think it's the same thing. a little different. enjoy your weekend. overseas "the daily mail" the head butt heard around the world has been immortalized. outside the pompadou museum in paris france the statue cap estuaries the moment, the great moment of the head butting in the 110th minute of the 2006 world cup final. that's actually when i first started following football. it was ugly. anyway, he was given a red card, ejected from the game, which

ended up being the final one of his remarkable international career. also this weekend, a candid conversation with former supreme court justice sandra day o'connor. you aren't going to want to miss that nor do you ever want to miss friday's politico playbook report. let's bring in right now mike allen. here with the morning playbook. good morning, mike. >> happy friday, joe. >> a happy friday it is because you've just said it was. okay. so, you know, i don't know what to say about todd akin. i don't know what to say. he borrowed a line from owen wilson, from meet the parents. she's a real bob cat. instead he called clare mccaskill what, a wildcat?

>> a northwestern brand. >> but then he did something else. he said, i think we have a very clear path to victory and apparently claire mccaskill thinks we do too is what he said after the debate because she was very aggressive at the debate, which was quite different than when she ran against jim talent. she had a confidence and was much more lady like in 2006. >> boy. >> okay. so let's just stop right there. how do you think that is going to play with the swing voters and women in missouri in 2012? >> of course this makes people think todd akin's earlier dumb comment was no fluke but, joe, the real dilemma for people in washington is do you fund this guy? it is looking like he could still beat claire mccaskill. he is hanging in there in polls. the senate republican campaign committee which had said not another dime to him, and they said that partly to avoid

funding their other donors, when the deadline passed for him to drop out and he didn't and was hanging in there in polls they said just this week, we'll monitor that race. national center regimes talked about putting money in there. now he says something like this. but, joe, here's the dilemma for them. he could be 51. he could get them a senate majority. are you going to walk away from that? because the candidate is a laughing stock? that's what they're debating at this moment. >> unfortunately, mark halperin, they were thinking about starting to invest in todd akin in the end because they had no choice after his legitimate rape comments. a month had passed and they were thinking maybe he can still win. and then he comes out and says that a snoenator is not, quote, lady like as if the guy is straight out of 1952. so it looks like he can't handle even the possibility of success. >> there are two elements with him. one is whether he can win and

whether investing money for them is a good idea. the other is when he does stuff like this, and every republican who knows him thinks he'll do more like this, the problem is other republican senate candidates get asked about what he said. so if they don't cauterize him, cut him off, keep him from being part of the national republican conversation, they risk having him be a problem not just for losing the seat there but for hurting other republican candidates around the country. i think they're going to be reminded of that dynamic with this latest remark. >> that's a real problem, mike allen, isn't it? they did cauterize is a perfect word. i thought the republican party might. did a great job in coming out as quickly as possible and distancing themselves from the legitimate rape comments. now they have more comments coming again at a time that's not so good for mitt romney or anybody if they seem to be embracing a guy who is certainly not going to help their gender gap. >> well, joe, that's right. they cut him off before when he looked like a certain loser. no one thought he could survive the legitimate rape comment.

it was a little easier. and the outside groups also american crossroads, their donors were saying don't even think about giving in this race. but now if it could mean a majority leader mitch mcconnell that makes the choice very much more difficult. >> well, i mean, there are so many senate races, mike, that may be inching the democrats' way. you look up in massachusetts and see the president ahead by 20, 25 points now. that puts again a rising star for the republican party in big jeopardy. so i mean do you really want to throw your money away in missouri when you've got a chance for scott brown to get re-elected in massachusetts? i guess that is the $64,000 question. >> and if mitt romney is running this badly in virginia george allen is going to have trouble too. >> exactly. >> he'll run a little ahead of romney but he can't survive a huge gap. >> if romney loses four or five percentage points it's going to

be really rough. all right. mike, thank you so much. have a great weekend. >> happy weekend to you. >> all right. coming up we'll have claire mccaskill asking her why she's not more lady like when she is on the campaign trail. when we come back, can you believe that? when we come back the refs are back on the job. highlights from the nfl's thursday night games, next in sports with brian sullivan. you're just not going to want to miss that. keep it here on "morning joe." mika has jetted in from the south of france. she, too, will be here to talk about the nfl refs strike. ♪

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welcome back to "morning joe." mika, it's over. i want to thank the nfl fans for stepping in and intervening and ending the ref strike. >> i'm glad i could help. >> a lot of people are saying your comments and bill clinton's difference made a show. >> i feel like a ref on this show. >> that's why you understand being paid well. more value. >> you get a lot of penalties. >> i do get a lot of penalties. be careful. you need to stay lady like. >> really. >> that's what todd akin told

me. >> double flag. question for you. why are you the only one who can bring up todd akin? because i want to. >> well, there is a recent development. >> right. there wasn't one? i brought it up. go ahead. toss to sports. that's fine. that's a penalty. >> she's tough. >> wouldn't you like to go back to nice? >> no. >> it's beautiful. a lot cheaper. it's off-season. >> i have things to do. >> let's go to new york and, brian, what are you looking at? >> anything but the fiscal cliff right? i've been called a screaming conservative and raging liberal. i guess that means i'm doing something right. let's go to sports now. >> please. just do it. >> it is bipartisan. start with the nfl. ravens and browns last night. i couldn't watch the game because i agreed to come thon show this morning. union referees greeted with standing ovations. look at that. when do you see refs get standing os? long awaited return for the men in stripes. look at this.

all right. ravens punt. the receiver takes the kick. watch this. oh, i mean he was popped. his helmet came off. scary looking hit. goes to the ground. luckily, he's okay. stood up. walked off in his own power. even kind of managed to crack a little smile walking off. that is good to see. all right. let's pick it up in the third quarter. a floater, picked off by williams. he takes it 63 yards to give the ravens a two score lead. in the final moments of the lead the browns within six they have got a chance to win it improbably. a hail mary to the end zone. kind of like seattle. but this one falls incomplete. looks like the game is over. nah. an unnecessary roughness call gives cleveland one more shot. there are two seconds left. browns at the 18. wheaton lobs one up to the back

of the end zone but it is too strong of a throw. overshoots it. >> oh, boy. >> the ravens hang on to win a close one, 23-16. by the way, the sad sack browns looking for the first win. ravens are 3-1. very quickly, got to speed it up. look at the mets. the mets speaking of sad sacks are way out of everything but this could be the catch of the year perhaps. check it out. >> baxter hits it in the air to deep right field. back goes schneider to the track. back at the wall it's out of here. no! he caught it! he brought it back. he brought it back. >> he climbed the fence. >> emblematic of the mets' season. even the call had it wrong initially. a heck of a catch. spiderman action. great story. r.a. dickey, a tough luck story for much of his life. 20th win of the year. the first met pitcher to win 20 in a season since 1990. could make up the nl cy young.

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43 past the hour, time now for the must read opinion pages. we're live in washington. mark halperin in new york get ready for this one. joe started this at the top of the show. go large, mitt. charles krauthammer in "the washington post." for six months romney has been matching obama small ball for small ball. a hit-and-run critique here.

a slogan of the week there. his only momentum came when he chose paul ryan and seemed ready to engage in the big stuff -- medicare entitlements, tax reform, national solvency, restructured welfare state. yet he has since retreated to the small and the safe. when you're behind however safe is fatal. even whhis counterpunching has gone miniature. make the case. go large. about a foreign policy in ruins, an archaic 20th century welfare state, the guarantee of 21st century insolvency and an alternate vision of an apologetically assertive america abroad unafraid of fundamental structural change at home. it might just work and it is not too late. mark halperin is it too late? he capable as a candidate to do this after all we've seen over the past five years from mitt romney? or not seen? >> if you watch conservative media, read krauthammer, watch fox or talk privately to any republican politician, it's hard to find anybody, even some

people as you all know inside the romney campaign, who think they're doing the right thing now. that they're ontrack to win just by governor romney saying that. the challenge for them is because of the dine ammics, we've seen this movie before, they are getting all this advice in public and private and they have to do something that shows a change. as i said before you can't be just a good debate performance. as kelly said the events have to be bigger. the rhetoric has to be sharper. they have to be driving the day. they didn't lose the news cycle yesterday but didn't win it either. right now they're basically three plays and out every possession. the president is playing preevent defense but people like charles krauthammer are frustrated because they don't see a reaction to being behind in some sort of change. be angry. be a fighter. go big. whatever it is. they have to do something different i think in the expectation of the conservative press or people are going to start turning on them. >> yeah. joe, the debates, is that one area where he actually might do well? >> i think he'll do well in the debates. he is a very good debater.

the president's own people will say, and they're not spinning, that the president's not that great in debates. he lost the majority of the debates to hillary clinton back in 2008. he is not good at boiling things down to sound bites and delivering a punch line. but sam stein, there is, though, a real concern among conservatives. you know, two weeks ago when i started, the huffington post picked up my comments. >> as always. >> early on. at that point i said oh, my god it's getting late. >> yeah. >> it's getting late. then "the wall street journal", peggy noonan and others followed but here we are two weeks later and charles krauthammer is saying two weeks later and he was saying it then. he was saying two weeks ago, if i was worried it was getting too late two weeks ago, we're saying the same thing today. can he change? >> well, let's -- krauthammer

talks about -- romney does talk about foreign policy, a 20th century entitlement system, he talks about america and the need to be unapologetic. he talks about all these things. the problem romney has is he can't go a week talking about these things because he is tripping over his own words and gaffes whether the clint eastwood moment or running to criticize obama for the libya attacks and each and every time he tries to build momentum around these themes, build a larger place to get obama out -- he over shadows. >> you just said theme. that is what charles krauthammer says. he said if there were an over arching thing mitt romney was carrying from foreign policy -- >> you can only build that theme if you do it day in and day out and obama has done his theme which is romney is this rich guy who is going to outsource everything. he's been tripped up every now and then but by and large has been consistent. mitt romney has been his own worst enemy. >> that is the problem kelly. they don't have a big over

arching theme as charles krauthammer says that carries them through a week where they're not looking at just what happened 15 minutes ago and trying to respond frantically to that. >> i think the romney people would say their over arching theme is we can't afford four more years. however, they have not hammered that as consistently and i think what you talked about, being over shadowed by the shiny object of a gaffe or some other kind of unexpected thing that has distracted people from focusing on that. >> so, josh, the campaigns are, you write, are consumed with the undecided voters but can they get them? >> that was a question i went and looked at in this week's issue was sort of who are these people who we all hear are so important and still haven't made up their minds? there is a statistic from the campaign media group that 43,000 political ads a day are now airing in this country and it's sort of mind boggling to think we could be enduring this and there could still be people out there at their mercy. >> a small group of people. >> who are vanishing. >> who are they? >> broken into two groups

basically. one are people who follow the news, may watch "morning joe" and genuinely cannot make up their minds. the other grum of people that haven't tuned in yet but are starting to now. there is one reason the 47% comment was so damaging. i kind of went deep into the weeds with some of the micro targeters and media buyers trying to figure out who these people are, what their demographic profiles are. if you want to know about that it is in the new issue today. they drive saabs, drink light beer. >> saabs huh? >> beer drinking saab owners. all right. >> yeah. >> willie's week in review is next. keep it right here on "morning joe."

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right back on the road. and taxi fight. this is conflict resolution new york style. in an iphone video posted online this week, we're treated to a couple fellows in business casual attire slap fighting over a coveted rush hour cab. after some greco-roman grappling and a nice box out move the battle of wills ended with an emphatic concession of defeat. and the number one story of the week -- >> he's in the end zone! oh, my god he's got it! >> while the presidential campaign whipped through decisive battleground states and new questions were raised about the administration's handling of the deadly consulate attack in libya, the country was focused squarely on the refs. >> at the end of the monday night game it was almost as if you could run to the window and

hear other football fans screaming in anger and disgust. >> the president called it terrible. the call was made by replacement referees. >> last night, let's just say, was not pretty. >> three weeks of shaky officiating by the nfl's replacement officials culminated in a monday night football debacle that cost the green bay packers a victory. >> just look at the replay. and then the fact that it was review reviewed. it was awful. that's all i can say about it. >> with cheeseheads in full revolt the commander in chief stepped in with a tweet presumably composed in the situation room. the would-be commander in chief and his wisconsin running mate spoke up, too. >> did you guys watch that packer game last night? i mean, give me a break. >> paul was very angry that the green bay packers he believes won and the referees took it away from them. >> all that pressure pushed the

nfl and its officials to make a deal. they returned the refs to the field on thursday night as heroes in stripes. ♪ did you ever know that you're my hero ♪ >> with the nfl crisis solved, the next question is, what the hell are we going to do about this? >> a new cheeseburger crown crust pizza. relish a first of its kind deliciousness. >> all right. thank you, willie, for that. we want to thank brian sullivan. we'll see you at 2:00 today on "street signs." >> i'm sure you will and all your fans that are sending me such nice tweets this morning. good morning, america by the way. >> what are they saying? >> oh, i want old people to not have health care. i'm a math guy folks. the social security administration's 2009 health care spending is not partisan just math. numbers are a bipartisan support. >> okay. i didn't really want to know. i just wanted -- >> i know you didn't.

but i'll tell you anyway. >> we all get nailed like that. >> the warm embrace you get from "morning joe" and brian thanks for being here. josh green thank you so much. great to have you. inside the minds of undecided voters. we'll read that in bloomberg business week. kelly o'donnell, awesome to have you in. come back very, very soon. >> look forward to it. >> when we come back, newt gingrich joins us onset. also former white house press secretary dee dee myers. keep it right here on "morning joe." tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about low-cost investing.

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i'm barack obama and i approve this message. >> 47% of the people who vote for the president no matter what. who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has the responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, food, housing, you name it. and they will vote for this president no matter what. and so my job is not to worry about those. i'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility. >> top of the hour a live look at the white house on a rainy friday morning in washington. welcome back to "morning joe." we're here in washington. sam is still with us along with mark halperin up in new york and joining the table here in d.c. we've got a great group.

former -- my professor? >> your professor. >> am i a good student professor gingrich? >> much better than me. you were my favorite student. >> wow. >> former white house secretary under president clinton and contributing editor to "vanity fair" dee dee myers is with us as well. okay. >> we just have a fascinating conversation. the contents of which we won't say completely on the air. >> oh. >> but we were talking about bill clinton. you worked for him. >> i did. >> you worked with him. >> yes. >> and i mean you guys had this remarkable dynamic i talk about all the time. i talked about tip o'neill and ronald reagan of the 1980s. didn't see eye to eye. they got things done. '90s you and bill clinton. a fascinating character. you guys obviously didn't see eye to eye. you got things done. and bill clinton is having a huge impact in this race. rich lowry of course of the national review said if you want to see when this election turned it was in the middle of bill clinton's speech.

this guy still -- you said something about georgia ads. what was that? >> i was told last night by randy evans who is the national committeeman from georgia that there are more ads in georgia for obama with clinton in them than there are with obama in them. which makes sense. you know, bill clinton is the best political figure in terms of skill since ronald reagan. >> right. >> that's just a fact. >> right. >> and his ability to communicate, i thought his speech, which i had to watch, i actually didn't watch the obama speech. >> right. >> i watched the clinton speech. i thought it would be more creative, more interesting. and it turned out to be a lot more important. >> why was that speech so important? a lot of politician speeches are wall paper. that one mattered. >> i'll leap out here and then you take me. i think that the romney challenge in the debate is to reset the campaign from the bill clinton narrative. it's not the obama narrative.

the clinton speech gave a frame of reference that explained obama and discredited romney. there is nobody on the republican side with the same capacity to be believable. i think clinton probably right now, you know the numbers. i think he may be the most acceptable american political figure. he is a big force in his own right. >> mika, by the way, i think most people even democrats will say that bill clinton explained barack obama better than barack obama. i mean, barack obama's speech w was -- i thought he delivered it very well but bill clinton was a country lawyer and he -- >> it could explain. >> he went item by item and blew up romney's arguments and built up barack obama's arguments. >> bill clinton heads to new hampshire next week to campaign for the president because he is that useful. what do you think, mr. speaker of mr. mitt romney's chances as things stand right now? how do you feel about it?

>> i think he has to have a very strong debate. i think they're whistling past the grave yard. >> is that another way of saying he is not doing so well right now? >> sure. i think everybody i talk to agrees he's had two and a half very tough weeks. and i do agree. i think they started with the clinton speech and then they got compounded by all of the stuff that happened. on the other hand, where i think i would disagree and go back to my partisan roots is clinton really described a terrific obama if only he existed. >> right. >> but the truth is obama is not clinton. obama is a big government, left wing democrat who just this morning we learned has -- a unanimous senate panel led by john kerry is demanding he tell the truth about benghazi. every time you turn around, underneath this zone of the great speaker there is a president with massive unemployment. they just downgraded the economy

for the last three months yesterday. the manufacturing index is collapsing. and so i'm just suggesting -- >> this benghazi story by the way is a huge story. right now dee dee myers the fbi won't even go into benghazi because it is so dangerous which leads you to wonder why they didn't listen to warnings before the attack and before our u.s. ambassador was killed. this is one of those issues and i think charles krauthammer said it perfectly today in "the washington post" that if mitt romney actually knew how to put forth an argument. >> right. >> he could really be grabbing attention. >> one of the problems was he jumped out ahead of this and politicized it in the hours immediately after the attack which discredited him in the media term as a spokesman for the other side. >> it was -- krauthammer said he could have done it so much better. >> and established himself as an alternative voice. he didn't do that and hasn't been able to do that. as a press secretary it is a very uncomfortable position.

>> you get elements of al qaeda, you get leon panetta saying it's not al qaeda. this is an absolute mess. and it shows real negligence on the administration's part. >> joe, listen. this also tells you a lot about this campaign. all right? you've had two weeks of this administration in total disarray. you had the united nations ambassador and the presidential press secretary sunday after the event saying things we now know were totally false. there is a report that came out last night i think on abc and fox both that they actually knew 24 hours in advance there was real danger there. >> and the ambassador's diary likewise. >> you have a president who even after his press secretary conceded it was a terrorist attack is still going back to his fantasy version that this is caused by some terribly stupid movie. over two weeks of this. an american ambassador and three

other americans dead and collapse of our position in benghazi totally. a large number of cia agents who left town the next day. more than known we had there by the way and the news media says mitt romney's timing was terrible. give me a break. >> he was unable to make the argument. he doesn't present an alternative. >> this is one of my great frustrations with conservatives. i'm not talking about you. you're right. the media hasn't been following this story as much as it could have but if you were the nominee guess what? the american people would have gotten the message. ronald reagan? he had an even more liberal, i mean, liberals had a complete monopoly in 1980. they had three networks. they had pbs, the "new york times", you know, they drove it. george h.w. bush in 1987, 1988, they had contempt for bush. and they somehow got the message out.

this is the great frustration that mitt romney can't make the basic arguments about a failed economic policy over the past three and a half years, a failed foreign policy, and it's just maddening. i know you probably can't say it on tv in the same way that i did but every conservative i talked to, they're just so frustrated. >> i think they're frustrated in part. this is the difference between clinton and frankly the last -- every republican nominee since reagan. i mean, reagan was a democrat and a tv star and movie star who got communicating. regular democrats get corporate meetings. i mean regular republicans. there is almost this republican consultant culture that says your job is to go raise money and i'll buy clever ads. as a result you don't get, i mean no president has been more vulnerable to an aggressive opponent than barack obama. for the reason you're saying. somebody who could just calm lane methodically -- >> you said something fascinating. you talked about a consultant

culture, something that craig shirley and other, i call them true conservatives, true reagan conservatives, gingrich conservatives, people who grew the majority in the 1980s and '90s they believe the republican party has been taken over by a washington, d.c. consultant culture. >> i believe that. >> that is the culture that nominated, right, mitt romney? >> right. >> he lacked a unified theory of the case and is part of why he has been ineffective at taking advantage of the bad economy. >> he has basically six weeks and the key moment is the first debate. >> but how does a guy who has been unable to speak a vision able to -- >> why is mitt romney unable to turn on a dime? i know the speaker can't say this. in 1992 bill clinton faced a crisis as he went into new hampshire right. >> he to the. he got off the mat. he won.

you look at what happened with george w. bush. faced the same crisis. when mitt romney faced a crisis didn't do it on the campaign trail. he ran 30-second ads. >> right. >> he had super pacs run 30-second ads. his crisis and it's the only time the romney people acted scared. when i talked to them a week before iowa they said if newt gingrich beats us in iowa it's over. we're not scared of perry. or anybody else. if gingrich beats us it is over. they ran 30-second ads and destroyed him. he wins south carolina. i've said this on tv so i'm not saying it because he is here. >> right. >> the same thing after south carolina. they faced a crisis. what did they do? they bought 30-second ads in florida and destroyed their only opponent. >> right. >> mitt romney didn't do it on the campaign trail. he didn't do it in press conferences. he didn't do it fighting back. >> right. >> 30-second ads. right? >> right. >> but to be fair for a second. >> he takes the reins of the campaign, redefines it and pushes forward, i don't think he is capable of that. >> you are absolutely right.

where mitt romney and paul ryan are this weekend the past couple days paul ryan has been in tennessee raising money. they're going to be up in west hartford, connecticut raising money, chestnut hill, massachusetts raising money, have been in houston, texas raising money. none of those states are swing states or matter in the election. they need to raise money because barack obama has a very large grass roots operation where he can dip in online and get the cash. >> we heard forever that romney had all the money. what happened? >> the rrnc had the money. >> i think in all fairness to romney when there got to be a crisis in florida he was very good in the debates. the one time when he was aggressive. >> right. >> he leaned forward, made his case, was in florida. that better be the romney who goes to the debates with barack obama. >> what about the one or two things, lines maybe that you would say he needs to get in there? something that could maybe, you know, turn around the narrative that he is this guy who --

>> look, as much as reagan used, there you go again. >> yeah. >> i think romney ought to come back and say mr. president why don't you tell the country the truth? why don't you tell the country the truth about benghazi? why don't you tell the country the truth about what your epa is doing to close down oil and gas? why don't you tell the country the truth about why we're now paying 3.89 a gallon? the trick with obama is obama is a fabulous facade and i give him a lot of credit. he and his team may well get re-elected. >> sure. >> with the worst record in modern times. >> i have a different theory though. >> all right. >> my theory -- >> what would you have -- >> what should the republican candidate do to connect with the conservative voters? >> people don't know this but i too -- >> i won the masters in '87. >> then you got married and ceased to be speaker of the house. >> my theory is this. there is an over saturation with

this terrible idea. people who are going to vote for romney have heard this and know it. people will vote on that theory and have already decided to make up their minds. you need something more than obama this is your fault. obama tell the truth about x, y, z. you need something a little more proactive and optimistic. and you need to actually sell a candidacy. i don't think that line cuts it. >> no. sets the stage for saying i'm going to focus on creating american energy in oil and gas so we don't have to rely on the persian gulf. i'm going to focus on creating jobs so we don't have to rely on welfare and foodstamps. i'll tell you the truth about complex foreign policy issues so you understand the threats to us. i mean, you could -- i agree with you. it has to be a campaign of contrasts not attack. >> right. >> but part of the contrast has to be, disarming the president. because if the president's believable, this is where clinton was so good. if the president is believable at the end of the first debate, there is a very high likelihood he'll be re-elected. >> yeah. >> the question is, can he do it? as a candidate? i'm just curious.

i want to bring mark halperin in. do you think he has the ability? >> having debated him, yes. he is a better debater than any of our nominees. >> you know what it is like to be on the campaign trail and deal with people. this is five years now and you watch how a candidate evolves. has he evolved enough to close the deal? >> i think we're discussing what has to happen. this is what will make this debate fascinating because we're discussing what i believe has to happen for him to be able to win the race. >> but he has shown himself to be good as you experienced in those very controlled settings where you can learn your answers, rehearse. there is a certain amount of time. there's only so much time for spontaneous give and take. >> right. >> that really is as good as it gets. >> right. >> here is a better question. since you've debated mitt romney what advice would you give to barack obama? >> call bill clinton every

morning. >> mr. speaker, if president obama is re-elected, as a historian and student and long-time strategist in the party is this more of a disaster for, and explain more by mitt romney being a bad candidate or will it say something about the weakness of the republican party? >> since we're going to keep the house seats and the senate and may end up with more governorships than 1921 i don't think it says much about the republican party. we have more legislative seats since 1925. we have more candidates of diversity. you look at susana martinez, nicki haley, a much bigger, broader party than the washington consultants understand. >> includes marco rubio. these aren't people on the margins. >> this is about a specific campaign with a specific set of problems, not about the broader republican party. if barack obama does win he

faces an enormous decision the first three or four weeks after that election. is he going to govern like bill clinton or keep governing like barack obama? if he governs like barack obama 2014 would be for the democrats probably the worst election in modern times. >> say he does win. are you on the night of the second inauguration meeting with other republicans in the caucus room to figure out how to defeat him? >> of course. no. bus we'll win in 2016. look, i always believed and i said to calista who is looking forward to launching her new book tuesday and being with you. i said as we left the inaugural at the capitol if he governs, he made three great speeches in a row, manassas just before the election, grant park election night and inaugural. if he governs like these three speeches he will beat eisenhower and split the republican party. >> eric canter, bob woodward reported it in the same book after meeting with barack obama the first time and barack obama

saying we're going to figure out how to work even eric canter turned to his staff and said if this guy governs this way republicans aren't going to be back in the majority for a very long time. >> i believe that. >> so does he have what it takes? bill clinton turned on a dime. we didn't believe in 1994 -- >> i think it was six months of turning. >> yeah. >> but clinton had a huge advantage over obama. clinton had lost the governorship after being the youngest governor in the country. >> he governed in arkansas for ten years. dealt with conservative democrats and a very small republican party. >> the decision to turn came from when he lost in '80 and it was clear to both bill and hillary if they stayed on the hard left they'd be a one-term president as carter had been. the ability to turn goes back to what dee dee just said. being a governor, he and i always could communicate. we had some very tough, brutal

fights. but there was some, we both had this compartmentalization that allows us to say okay. that was a really tough press conference. now how do we work this out? >> right. i sense real negotiations require you to listen carefully to the other person. not agree with him but listen carefully. try to figure out is there something we can start building to a yes on? and i sense that obama finds it really painful to listen to people because it's not who he is, not how he functions. >> i think to listen to republicans, i think again just because, dee dee, you said it. because of the background, because of where he came from as a state senator in illinois, maybe he didn't -- i've heard he's worked -- he worked with the republicans there but when you are a democratic governor in arkansas. >> right. right. >> you understand this is -- and as newt will tell you, took me a very long time to understand in

the house that everybody didn't have my district. it took me four years. i went campaigning with lindsay graham and for the first time went to the pacific northwest and i said oh, my god. the people i'd been killing for four years are actually the people i should be hugging because i can't believe they're getting elected in these democratic districts. i learned that. bill clinton learned it back in '78. >> right. >> in '80. >> right. >> when he lost. >> and he had, you know, spent all of this time with people, you know, middle class people so he had an incredible feel for what they cared about. but he also had traveled the country and the world so he knew, he could get outside of his narrow universe. that is one of romney's problems too. he really hasn't gotten outside of his world. >> i think it seems mitt romney might find it very painful to listen to people or what's going on in his campaign? is it him making all these decisions? >> well -- or should he make some changes? >> i think candidates have to

have their own campaigns. we both lived this. >> right. >> the campaigns are set for good or bad by the candidate. romney's at a perfect point for a guy who used to take over businesses and turn them around. >> would you turn this campaign around if you were in charge of it? >> my advice to romney is that he has very specific things they have to do. start with the candidate. and i agree with dee dee for example. they have to ask themselves why after two and a half weeks of a disaster in benghazi are they not dominating the issue? what do they have to change to dominate the issue? that starts with the candidate not the campaign. >> that does start with the candidate. and his ability to bring in other people like bill clinton brought in other people who have been critical of the president around the table for the first three and a half years. i think if he gets re-elected that will change with an eye toward history and i think he'll have to do it especially if republicans pick up seats in the senate and win the house. but mitt romney has the same problem. mitt romney doesn't have a james

baker that sets the themes, tells him what to do. >> right. >> mitt romney requires that he approves every ad. he's got to see it on his ipad before it goes out. he is a control freak right now in this campaign. and that's a real problem for him. >> do you think he'd be a little more metrics driven right? somewhere it was written this morning that his team is putting together, transition team is putting together a plan that is very detailed how he would kick-start job creation, come together with democrats to make a grand bargain and bring down the debt and deficit. why isn't he talking about any of that? >> well, i think that's a good question. actually i was going in a different direction. you raised a question i hadn't thought much about. he should be talking about that. but i think there is a deeper thing which you sort of referred to earlier, joe. i think that only now they're beginning to come to grips with the general election. >> true. >> they had a very successful

primary strategy. because in a primary you can raise enough money to build a motor boat. you can drive to where you want to get to in the primary. in a general election in the end you're like a sail boat because the system is so much bigger than you. >> to your point, though, part of the reason he's not talking about it is because of the primary. i mean, when you had him on stage with everyone else including you saying i would reject a deal that includes 10-1 tax cuts, spending cuts, tax hikes, spending cuts, it is very difficult to then say hey by the way here is my plan for the fiscal cliff which probably includes something involving revenue increases if it's going to get past the democrat house. you can't start pivoting if you took those very strong positions during the primary. it is very tough to pivot. >> mika? >> well i just look at the well oiled machine of the obama campaign and you were talking yesterday, some folks about how when you're a candidate your life is divided in 15-minute increments. when you get down to the wire it's five-minute increments. you can't be the one making the broad decisions at times or your decisions like a hastily called

news conference at 10:00 at night will be old by the time the news conference happens. >> right. >> is it fair to say that he needs a broad look as he moves ahead and someone to come in and really help him look at the big picture so he can be the candidate? mitt romney. >> i'm not sure. i mean, he's got to run a campaign. he's comfortable with. >> right. >> i think if you go back and look at clinton for example in new hampshire, an amazing amount of the survival was clinton. >> it was 100%. >> i mean, it wasn't anybody else. it was clinton. >> right. >> i think at one level the person that is really right in the cross hairs the next two weeks or next ten days is mitt romney. romney's got to decide, does he want to be a national player every morning, taking on these kind of issues? he going to walk into that room prepared to look the president of the united states in the eye and say, you're wrong, and then stick to it and win the arguments?

>> yeah. >> a great line. prime minister thatcher used to say first you win the argument then you win the vote. i think republicans forget that. >> right. >> interesting. >> yes we do. >> speaker gingrich, mr. professor, thank you very much. >> we're looking forward to seeing calista on tuesday. dee dee myers stay with us. coming up more poll numbers from swing states. david gregory and chuck todd will be here to break them down and also eugene robinson joins the conversation. i don't want healthy skin for a day. i want healthy skin for life. [ female announcer ] don't just moisturize, improve the health of your skin with aveeno daily moisturizing lotion. the natural oatmeal formula goes beyond 24-hour moisture. it's clinically proven to improve your skin's health in one day, with significant improvement in 2 weeks. for healthy, beautiful skin that lasts.

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♪ >> all right. 29 past the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." we're live in washington. joining us in new york the guys who are supposed to be live in washington. >> hey, where are they?

>> we came here. >> we came here for you. >> this is sort of awkward. >> like we're in washington right here. see? look. >> we're here with your coffee. >> we're in washington. yeah. exactly. >> you left mark here by himself. >> you forgot to bring him. >> party in david gregory's office. okay. moderator of "meet the press." >> and he has a secret coffee machine. you should find out about it. with good water. that's what matters in that bureau. where you can find the good water. >> that's scary. also joining us eugene robinson the pulitzer prize winner and associate of "the washington post." good to have you onboard. where are you? >> i'm in boston. we all left town. >> we come to washington and they're all gone. let's go through the polls. >> we'll start with msnbc/"wall street journal" marist poll north carolina obama 48, romney 46. nevada obama 49, romney 47. new hampshire, where president clinton is going to be

campaigning next week, obama 51. r romney 44. chuck, why don't you break those down for us? >> look at north carolina and nevada, the two places that economically are doing worse probably than any of the other battleground states. so if romney's economic message is going to play anywhere it's there. he should feel given how bad his last ten days were that the fact that he is only basically in the margin of error in those two states is good news for him if you will if you can look at it that way. notice that the president's job rating in both of those states, lower than his number. he sits at 47 in north carolina, 48 in nevada. then new hampshire is acting like the rest of the battlegrounds we've seen and that's got to be a little disappointing to romney since he spent so much time in new hampshire but frankly that one didn't surprise me. the surprising one to me was nevada that it was close. i expected there to be a little more of a gap there. >> suffolk university poll out late last night shows that the candidates are pretty close in

virginia. neck and neck. obama 46. romney 44. chuck? >> the one thing i've heard on this poll is democrats are arguing that northern virginia was under represented in the poll. that said, i mean we're talking a difference of a point or two. if you will. and it's sort of in the range of what you hear where virginia is anywhere from two to five points so the number was not surprising. >> chuck todd, david gregory, you look at all of these polls and, david, look at the fact, in ohio, even the romney people understand they're down six, seven, eight points. and they're down right now in north carolina, a state they were ahead in and not so long ago. it makes you think that newt gingrich is right, mitt romney needs to turn in a great performance in the first debate, or else the window starts closing. >> this is very clear. you get several big opportunities as a candidate to make your mark.

the announcement of your running mate. your convention. and then the debates. and the reality is that mitt romney is not seized on those first two events. even a big foreign trip as he made to london and israel, he is not catapulted as a candidate into a streak of some momentum where he really challenges the incumbent president. when it's always tough to beat an incumbent. and so, you know, i've talked to republicans, allies of mitt romney who say this has been the low point. the polls reflect that. so is he still in it? yes. but he's got to season the debates and then he has to have some kind of final act, which is about two things. it's not only about going big as you've been talking about this morning and charles krauthammer writes but it's about the "l" word, leadership. i do think and inthe romney folks believe whatever the number is of undecided voters they're not keeping score necessarily on tax policy or medicare. they are looking at these candidates, taking their measure, and saying do i see this person as president?

are they up for the job? and it's that ultimate leadership test that i think you still have to test. >> you know, mika, for the past week, week and a half, two weeks, the right wing blogosphere and talk radio deluded themselves into believing mitt romney's problem came from main stream media or my favorite polls that were skewed. >> right, right. >> and it had nothing to do with what romney's own people were saying was a disastrous two weeks. >> maybe they have different data. eugene writes about this in his column entitled "republicans deluded by skewed polls" and you write in part conservative activist circles are abuzz with a new conspiracy theory. polls showing president obama with a growing lead over mitt romney are deliberately being skewed by the liberal main stream media. >> like fox news which has swing state polls that are negative, too. >> which has fascinating coverage. so republicans will be

disheartened and stay at home on election day. that's what you say. this is denial and self-delusion but not of the harmless kind. it's a false narrative that encourages the republican party to take the wrong lessons from this election no matter the outcome. and that, gene, is interesting because if the outcome does not go in mitt romney's favor the party does have to take a look at itself. >> well, i think it does. if you look at what's happened to the republican brand over the last four years, i mean, politicians in general have taken a beating. i think there's plenty of polling evidence out there that the american public would like to have done with both parties in a sense and you see the number of independents increasing as it has been for sometime. but the republican brand is just battered, really. i mean, republicans get blamed more for the gridlock and dysfunction in washington. they got blamed for the

brinksmanship over the debt ceiling. they are, you know, not doing well and numbers reflect that. and i think if, you know, this conspiracy theory about the polls -- my theory is it's all being fanned by democrats who want the republicans to believe this stuff because it leads them down exactly the wrong path. >> yeah. >> they really kind of need to look longer term. the stance on immigration for example. what is that going to do in terms of hispanics going forward? >> joe, do you chk it's better for the republican party in terms of getting back to who it is, what it is, and the basics if mitt romney wins or -- >> obviously you always want your candidate to win. >> who is your candidate and is he a republican conservative? >> the thing is, and i thought chuck todd, newt gingrich brought up a great point. you look at what happened in 2010 in the elections. the republicans won an historic landslide on the state and national level as far as picking

up legislative seats. if they pick up seats in the house, if they hold in the senate, if they pick up governorships and they have more governorships than they had since the 1920s and they collapse on the national level, then you will see the republican party i think fairly making the argument that, yes. nationally the brand has been battered. i mean, that's just a matter of math. but nationwide, they are strong on the state and local level. >> you bring up something. i think this is the biggest danger for mitt romney in this first debate and that is what happens when political darwinism kicks in, right? which is survival. and survival of the fittest. and a bunch of down ticket republicans start sprinting and scrambling away from romney. that's what makes this debate so important to romney because if he doesn't sort of look like he's turning things around, come through this, become -- close the gap a little bit, then you're going to have newt gingriches of the world and

others telling republican gubernatorial candidates, republican senate candidates, hey, get away from romney. create your own brand. create your own local brand on republican ideas and conservative principles because the national brand is a mess. >> and david gregory, the last thing that karl rove or other republicans that are raising a lot of money for republican majority and a republican presidency want is a repeat of 2008 where barack obama starts a second term with the same advantage he had in the first term. so when do you, if he has a bad first debate, when do you say you know what? we're going to save the house because bill kristol and others are saying we may even lose the house. and we're going to try to win the senate against all odds. >> look, i think you see pockets of this already happening. i mean, even if it's through more silence among these republican candidates who want some distance from mitt romney, i moderated a debate between kaine and allen in virginia and

allen was very careful to not go near the 47% and directly criticize romney but keep his distance. so i think it is already happening. i think part of the problem that romney has is he wants to project an air of pragmatism, to be a guy americans see as having potential to puncture some of the problems and dysfunction in washington. i do believe he believes that himself and understands that he would have to be unpopular and make some tough decisions but he can't get out from the party from underneath the party right now. i think that is part of his struggle so it reinforces itself war lot of conservatives think he is just not up for it. >> gene robinson how much does jesus love barack obama? i mean, you look at his opponent in 2012. you look at his opponent in 2008. you look at how he got to the united states senate with strippers and everything else. you get alan keyes running against you in the general election. how much does jesus love barack

obama? what a -- >> joe, jesus loves us all first of all. jesus loves us all. >> you can tell this man grew up in south carolina. you can tell. correct. >> yeah. but number two, look. barack obama defeated the clinton machine in 2008. he defeated john mccain. he has opened a lead on mitt romney. i mean, you know, i think it's fantasy to say this is all like the -- you could argue he's had luck but in fact he is good at this. he is good at this. you know, he's got a trial. he's got a track record here. >> all right. >> as i said to david axelrod, mika, the dnc, you people may not know how to run this country but you can put on a campaign. >> yes, yes. david gregory, who do you have on "meet the press thoi sunday? >> we'll talk to chris christie on the program to get his

handicapping of the race and the debates ahead. >> that'll be good. chuck todd, see you on "the daily rundown" right after "morning joe." eugene robinson thank you as well. new column in today's "the washington post." joe, bless your heart. in the south, you know what that means? >> go to hell. you're in trouble. >> exactly. >> coming up u.s. senator claire mccaskill of missouri joins the conversation. this happy couple used capital one venture miles

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still ahead on "morning joe" how the economic collapse in 2008 helped reinvigorate the republican right. more morning joe in a moment. this country was built by working people.

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48 past. joining us now author thomas frank out now with the new book "pity the billionaire, the hard

time swindle and the unlikely comeback of the right." >> thomas, great question here. after the collapse of the markets in 2008 you would expect a huge populist revival of the left but actually two years later the biggest republican landslide nationally in u.s. history. >> exactly the opposite of what you would expect if you are a model of the 1930s. the populist feeling was really captured by the other side by the conservative movement. they got up there in the parks with the rallies and tea party movement. they were the ones denouncing the banks and wall street. they captured that sensibility. you know, you think about it, we still of course see traces of it today. the whole idea of the job creators. >> why is it? you know, it is so fascinating. i think the media and the left they go oh, the koch brothers are funding this. they're billionaires. maybe they were but we all know if there isn't that popular

resurgence or feeling it's not going to go out there. >> yeah. >> just like the perot people. this wasn't top down but bottom up. why? >> i went to -- i happened to go to the very first tea party rally held here in d.c. in february of 2009. it was, i mean, it was just a round up of all of your typical washington conservative figures. editors of magazines, people from think magazines, people from think tanks, lobbyists, this kind of thing, but it caught on. so i would say yeah, it was started as top down effort and became something genuine over the years. why? because they were the only ones screaming about the bailouts. the bailouts were a complete outrage, everyone knew it, every political persuasion doesn't matter, this was an outrage. the people in first the bush administration and then obama administration are like hey, nothing to see here. >> one republican incumbent after another was defeated by

tea party because of support of the bailouts. >> obama was president and he had to defend the bailouts and make it work. >> and he had to answer for that. there's no doubt he had to do something. you couldn't let the economy fall off the cliff and let the big banks fail but you could have wound their business down over time. >> they're bigger today than four years ago. >> exactly. there's all kinds of other things they could have done. one of the lost opportunities of the obama presidency is all of the different ways he coffmuld e have managed the bailouts. >> and yet supported tarp. >> the auto bailouts, that was one part of the puzzle doing very well. if you look at the bailouts in the 1930s, hoover and roosevelt bailed out banks and bailed out other corporations but did it

differently. they would go in there, fire the management. they would wind the company down if they didn't approve the way it had been operating. we didn't do that this time around the auto bailouts are the only place we did. they restructured the companies for the good. >> obama could have been harder on the bank. >> should have intervened more forceful forcefully. i came back from speaking in germany, they can't believe this industry is just -- it is going to be back to its own tricks. >> why do you think he wasn't harder on the banks? >> well, i think first of all his heart wasn't in it. president obama, talked about the problem with partisanship. that's what he thought he was coming to washington to solve, not something with the banks. this cropped up late in the campaign, everything was already set. that's never been his subject. instead, he just took the advice of his advisers, let's go back

to regulatory capture and all the things we are debating. his advisers were generally speaking people friendly to wall street over the years. he brought back, i mean, for pete's sake, larry summers, treasury secretary when they overturned -- >> do you understand the question that has driven progressives crazy, when the candidates ran in '94, ran to cut capital gains tax, cut death tax, very conservative, cut inflati inflation, and i cleaned up with working class voters making under 50,000, probably got 75%, why is that that -- >> roosevelt told voters, and today they're your voters -- until mitt romney is throwing them all away.

telling them to get lost. >> why is that. progressives say why do these people vote against their self interest, which i don't agree with, but a lot of progressives do? >> that is the question i am trying to answer. the answer is because the conservative movement really offered them what appeared to be a genuine form of outrage, really spoke to public outrage at the banks. >> thomas, the book "pity the billionaire." you can get an excerpt at msnbc. stick around for more "morning joe". something this delicious could only come from nature. stick around for more "morning joe". of splenda sweeteners, discover nectresse. the only 100% natural, no-calorie sweetener made from the goodness of fruit. the rich, sweet taste of sugar.

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still ahead, put it away. been a tough week polling for mitt romney. up next, we will show you the numbers from three battleground states with more "morning joe." hmm, it says here that cheerios helps lower cholesterol

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a.m. on the west coast. a live look at new york city. back with us, sam stein, kelly o'donnell, joshua green. in new york, mark hall principal and brian sullivan. mark, respond to this. charles krauthammer and "the washington post," charles, the patron saint of conservatives, the headline, go large, mitt. listen do this line. makes you think how far ahead romney would be if he were actually running a campaign, but his unwillingness to go big, to go for the larger argument is simply astonishing. and mark, charles goes on to say what many conservatives have said in the past several weeks,

he's behind and continues to play small. >> he does and he continues to have days that don't really amount to much. yesterday they had sort of a veterans message and economy message doing events in virginia, but they can't wait for just the tee baits. conservatives want to see not just big events in terms of ideas but big events that grap the nation's attention. romney campaign is frustrated because all he asks about is the process, conservatives are waiting for mitt romney to be big in events and message, big in personality, and it seems like right now the campaign is waiting for him to do that. >> mark, you know what, they focus on process, they focus on process because there's not substance to follow. you know, it is funny, in 1988 facing a more hostile press,

george h.w. bush never whined about process because james baker told the press what they were going to be following and he told the candidate what he was going to be doing, and every week the candidate did it. the message was unbelievable. but going on with charles krauthammer, for six months mitt has been matching obama small ball for small ball. a hit and run critique here. this is important. a hit and run critique here, a slogan of the week there. that's what we've been saying. sam stein, there's no overarching message, no reagan message, no thatcher message, no george h.w. bush message in 1988. it is small ball. you have the libyan embassy blow out, push him out the next morning and do something even the romney campaign understands is an absolute disaster. the president makes a faux pas about a bump in the road which was a stupid thing to say, they obsess over that the next day

instead of saying this is our message, this is how we're getting people back to work and this is how we're changing the economy. >> clearly they're chasing news headlines, trying to win the day. >> great way to put it, they're chasing. >> but it is weird. you can argue they're chasing the wrong news headlines. for instance, we spent a couple days obsessing over 1980s or 1990s redistribution quote from obama, news of the day for the romney campaign. we gave more attention to that than we did to the revision of the gdp numbers or economic growth numbers down to 1.73 growth. you think for romney that would be a bigger story, economy grew slower in second quarter than we thought. they put more behind the redistribution quote which is old, meaningless, didn't say much about obama. >> 1998. again looking at the fact in the past three months, kelly, you have jobs coming in, job growth coming in under 100,000 a month,

economists say it needs to be 125,000 to keep up with the economy, and yet again they're chasing the headline of the day or they pull out a 1998 video. people don't care about that any more than they care about when mitt romney stopped being ceo. >> those are very comparable. >> they want to know how the hell are you going to get me back. >> you watch romney event day after day as we do as students of this, you will see the economic message but it is not the thing that rises to the surface. if they were able to stage bigger events that had an organic energy to them, that would drive a certain believability -- >> you say organic what? >> energy. >> sort of where they go romney, ryan, romney, ryan, instead of ryan ryan ryan. >> people want to vote for the person they think will win.

republicans don't get on their feet as much as democrats do, but some events are so stayed. >> you went to some sarah palin events four years ago. >> many of them. >> people got on their feet for sarah palin and for other people they believe are true blue conservatives. they're just not excited about mitt romney. we have a lot of new polls out today, josh. i was saying a week ago, there's 45 days, time to turn it around, four debates, there's pictures today of of people lining up in ohio to go vote. >> in iowa. already opened up. >> in iowa opening next week and ohio tuesday. >> virginia is already voting. >> virginia is already voting. guess what, you know, you can tell i am an old guy, ran a decade or two ago because you have the rules wrong. thinking back in terms of the 1980 campaign, that's not the reality. look at people lined up to vote.

mitt romney has to turn this around now. >> the problem is that adds more -- we have come to a point where early on romney had multiple points to change the narrative in his favor, wrapping up the nomination, picking his vice president. we're down to the last one. it is the debates. that adds an enormous amount of pressure. >> the debates because of early voting, it is the first debate. he has to turn it around first debate and needs to keep people in the game the first debate. >> did you hear mccain beat obama on election day and obama got his margin strictly from early voting. and they're doing it more robustly this time. >> look at a state like iowa, which parties requested how many absentee ballots. democrats requested 100,000, republicans 16,000. that gives an inkling of early voting. >> he has to turn it around by now. >> well, he can do -- you know

what, things can change overnight with a great debate performance, but again, mark halperin, time is running out if you look at all of the polls. we have been seeing the past couple weeks, mark, ohio, florida, big swing states that seem to be moving decidedly the president's direction, let's look now, i want you to give me your input on these states. on a group of other battleground states from nbc news, marist poll, earlier, the president won this state by less than 1%. mark, stop there. we will go state by state. north carolina, wasn't too long ago mitt romney had a big lead there. that's disappeared. and it's not because of the convention. >> it might be a little because of the convention.

there's the national poll. >> like i said, it is not because of the convention. >> i tell you why i think it might be. the reason why david plouffe and others are confident about north carolina, they say they have the best ground game there of any state. in 2008, one thing they did in north carolina, young people used social media to inform people how to register, where to register. in every one of the events the first lady does and other surrogates and occasionally the president, they focus telling people here is how to register. go vote now, don't wait to election day, something may happen that day to get you distracted. they are relying on enthusiasm, the grand game is not as big. that's a state, you look at 47% and look at the convention and look at the momentum from the convention, they may carry it through. may not be the sugar eye, may not dissipate. >> i tell you why, so ground game strong for the president, north carolina. i tell you what, i say this as a republican, if we lose north carolina, it is going to be a very long night for the party

nationwide. the president also has a two point advantage in nevada, mark, well within the margin of error. this seems like a state could go either way. as i said, about harry reid in 2010, usually if it is close in nevada, and i learned this from john enson in the 1990s, give it to the democrats. that's one place they can get the union voters out. and if it is close, it always seems to tip in the democrats' favor. >> you have union vote, hispanic vote very big there. on the other side, the governor that's popular has not gone all out for mitt romney, he endorsed him obviously. you've got a big mormon vote, and republicans put a lot of their best operatives in the country in that state. that could go either way. that's one mitt romney must have at this point if you look at electoral college options and he is a little behind. >> the state that came into play, helped elect george w. bush, hear a lot about florida,

george w. bush wouldn't have been president without new hampshire, that's a state mitt romney owns a home, the president owning a large lead again. that's changed in the past month. registered voters said the direction of the country had improved but the place where that was most significant, new hampshire. in june there was a 20 point gap between wrong track, right track. that gap in this poll is just 7%. we're seeing that time and time again. now let's go to virginia. another important state. mitt romney loses ohio, mark, i am sure you agree with me, he has to win virginia. new suffolk university poll last night shows the race is much tighter than it has been. president obama only ahead of mitt romney by 2 percentage points. and fascinating there. how does all of this look, mark? >> look, it is right to not take

any single poll, make a huge deal of it, but there are some state polls like that batch from nbc and the virginia poll, if you saw those in a vacuum, you'd say romney is in the game. i think if he has some good news, has a good first debate, i think the race will be significantly tighter, then they can answer different versions of the same question and have a chance to talk about things like the economy. he is behind in too many places to win, he still doesn't have as of of today an object veeg electoral college path and he is not making it up on the ground with enthusiasm any more which is one of the things they have been counting on. >> brian sullivan, let's bring you in as the money man. new polling from the kaiser family foundation gauge how medicare is factoring into the race in three key states. these polls do more than anything to prove how this is a substance free campaign on both

sides. it has been a campaign according to meek a bra sin ski, a campaign about nothing. according to senior voters in florida, ohio, virginia, medicare is considered extremely important for 51% of those polled, and that of course makes a lot of sense. voters in the three states also were asked the question of what the medicare system would look like in the future. roughly six in ten said the program should maintain the current system of benefits, and that number peaked at 65%. one of the most stunning numbers to me and it is unbelievably depressing in this age of, you know, where simpson and bowles are running around the country trying to tell americans what needs to be done to save the country from falling off the cliff financially, over 70% of voters in florida, seniors in florida said you don't have to

cut medicare to take care of the debt. >> why would they say that? >> why do you even -- why do you even say that? >> please, cut my benefits. no one is going to say that, joe. you know that. >> how about please save my country. no, no, but the question was asked do you need to cut medicare to take care of the debt crisis. this is the largest program in america. it is unsustainable. everybody knows it is unsustainable, and most americans don't believe you have to touch medicare to take care of the deficit or debt. >> it is a numbers issue, i am a numbers guy. used to be 40 years ago you had two people in america working to pay for one retiree. now it is basically one worker paying for 10 to 20 retirees because we have this horrific demographic shift, 7500 people turn 60 every day. the numbers are unsustainable. what's interesting about the chart is this. the president is glad the election is only 39 days away

because yesterday, kind of quietly, don't want to get wonky, we had dismal economic data. durable goods was terrible. boeing, 260 aircraft in july, sold one in august. gdp was revised down. 25% of people that -- i can't remember the source of the poll, said they were slowing spending because of the fiscal cliff issue. things are slowing down because smart viewers of "morning joe" and cnbc know we get the biggest tax hike in history if congress doesn't do something. the economy is starting to turn. the president hopes that speeds up. 55% say the economy is the most important thing, that's what's on their mind. watch out, this fiscal cliff thing is a big deal and coming up quick. >> josh, you have business owners a couple years said we're not going to invest, we will keep 3 trillion on the sidelines, don't know what will happen because of regulations,

are they going to raise taxes. we have a third reason for business owners to be scared. what happens with the fiscal cliff and when we go over the side of the cliff. what happens when you raise taxes, cut spending at the same time? i mean, it is a horrifying business climate that will only cause the economy to grind to a halt more, which again leads to the question why is mitt romney losing. >> it is. and the only real certainty is it is not something that gets decided before the election. one of the ironies is that for all of the bad news, if you look at consumer confidence, it shot up the last few days since the democratic convention, there's a weird thing going on where confidence is defying the economic fundamentals in a way that helps the president. >> people are tired of feeling bad, they want to feel better. i am struck by the fact if we took a snapshot today, after the election you could have president obama with a second term, democrats holding the senate, and republicans holding the house. nothing different. so why would we expect there would be a different attitude

towards the fiscal cliff or fixing these problems. will there be? i don't know. >> when we come back, we talk to claire mccaskill about her re-election campaign in nebraska and what she thinks of todd akin's comment. she is not being lady like. and also ahead, supposed to be a documentary about detroit's come back. funny thing happened on the way to the movie. film makers found something far different. we talk to one of the directors behind this film that got buzz at sun dance. don't miss willie's weekend review. first, bill has a look at the weekend. >> looking nice in a few spots. we always have the trouble areas. get to that in a second. starting with the morning commute, in the heart of it, in areas of new england it is raining on and off. we are getting better in connecticut. new york, massachusetts, sliding into vermont. how does the weekend look.

that storm will exit new england. a new storm brewing in the northern great lakes. the rainy weather, texas on the gulf coast this weekend, you are the ones that could get drenched. here is the forecast for the weekend. starting with today, rain develops late day, dallas, san antonio, eventually to houston. gorgeous in northern plains. west coast, enjoy it, beautiful weather for the weekend, you'll be hot in l.a. next weekend, could be in the 100s, be prepared for that. as far as the weekend forecast, a few showers in maine and boston. d.c. to new york, still rain in dallas and san antonio. sunday, texas should clear out, stormy weather in the southeast, if you have anyone washed out this weekend. texas, louisiana, saturday and sunday, areas around new orleans. overall, not a bad fall weekend, especially for the northern half of the country. do some apple picking. what do you do with a wet and damp new york city.

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i don't believe that this election overall is about talk but it's really about two visions of what america is. it's not about words, it's about two different voting records that are the exact opposite. claire can say she's a 50%er, but when you vote with 98% of the time with obama and then

tell us that you're a regular middle of the roeder, that takes a lot of guts. i got to give her credit for that. >> that was republican challenger todd akin in last week's debate in the missouri senate seat race. joining us from missouri, senator claire mccaskill. senator, it is great to see you this morning. >> great to see you, senator. >> good morning. >> mark halperin is in new york. mark, you know, they say i think art linkletter said kids say the darndest things. >> they do. >> this is what he said about claire mccaskill. let's run it. >> we had some good times together. she's a tom cat. woo.

>> he didn't call you a tom cat. he called claire a wildcat. >> i feel sorry for the people in charge of making senator mccaskill's ads that have to go through the video and say which one of the akin clips past and future they use in commercials. >> claire, he calls you a wildcat. now he says you are not ladylike. where do you begin, you're not being ladylike. you debated like a wildcat. where do you begin with this, claire? >> i don't know, joe, what do you think? i am at a loss. i don't know exactly what his accusation that i am not ladylike means. i am a former courtroom prosecutor and i try to be strong and informed. i think the debate was tough for todd because i went through the list of his very, very extreme

positions and i think maybe he wasn't prepared to answer to some of that. so they went back to that old, you know, gosh, she was mean and unladylike. and i am hoping this motivates my supporters even more. it seems to have. we've had a lot of people go to clairemccaskill.com and weigh in whether i am ladylike with five bucks and we hope everybody does today. >> guys like ward cleaver from 1950s. >> i am going to say it because my favorite senator can't. todd akin seriously is -- it is disturbing. talk about unladylike? let me say he is not really truly man like, he is not a man. a real man understands the way a woman's body works and understands -- a real man would not comment on a, my god, a female senator's debate performance as unladylike

behavior. >> it is obvious, she should defer to him. >> senator mccaskill, todd akin said something in the clip we saw that i agree with is that you guys are presenting two very different visions of the future of where you want to take the country, what your voting records are to support that. seems to me he wants to go backwards to a time when you by rights should defer to him because you're a woman and he is a man and everything that goes along with that. >> well, it is, if you look at some of the things todd akin has said over the years, he said things like in the heart of liberalism is a hatred of god. he has been a handful of votes against things like the sex offender registry, and the center for missing and exploited children, i mean, this is somebody that makes michele bachmann look like a hippy. >> good line, by the way, congratulations.

>> he is very much in a group of people that would never be part of the compromise that we need to find to address the fiscal cliff. he would never be part of the group in the middle that actually figures out ways to solve these problems, that works across the aisle, is willing to be. he can say all he wants about a voting record, but it is absolutely uncon troe vermontable from 1 to 100, i am number 50 from liberal to conservative. that means impart of the middle that wants to work for compromises and do the right thing to move the country forward. todd is going to be part of the fringe caucus that wants to convince everyone that the whole issue is that the government is the enemy, and it's not the answer, government is not the answer but it's not the enemy. >> so senator, the congressman said you did vote with barack obama 98% of the time. is that an accurate number? >> depends which year, as you know, joe, some of these look at confirmations and look at

procedural votes. i mean, i have been willing to say to the president hey, get on board with the federal spending cap and the white house wouldn't go along with me and my bipartisan effort for a federal spending cap way before the 2010 elections. i've said he is wrong about keystone, wrong about cap and trade. there have been a number of times that i have parted with the president and i think they've used a number that makes it appear that i march lock step. if the president were asked about me, he would say i can be a real pain. >> mark halperin, a question. >> senator. >> maybe not ladylike. >> exactly. >> senator, who would help you more to campaign in missouri, president of the united states or former president bill clinton and why? >> i think they would both help and i would welcome both of them. i think they both have a capability of talking to working people that are working three

jobs. my opponent wants to abolish minimum wage. we have a lot of missourians working two and three jobs minimum wage to work it out. mitt romney says he doesn't care about those folks. they're paying payroll taxes, they're not worried about tax shelters, they're worried about shelter for their kids. i think both the strong leaders would be a great help. i would love it if either of them would come to missouri. >> sam stein. >> senator, first of all, you let out a sigh of relief when the deadline passed and todd akin was still in the race. secondly, it is not just you doing better in the polls because of the specific candidate you're facing, we're seeing a lot of democratic senate candidates doing better than expected against republican opponents. i want you to sort of diagnosis why it is that the party is doing better, what specific issues you think are resonating for the party at whole, and you know, whether you feel confident the party can keep its majority

for november. >> i think in some of the states where we're doing better it is a matter of the candidates, and it is a matter of them being known to their states as people who are willing to be part of that middle, like i talked about. i think what people are tired of, sam, is the throwing the grenades from opposite sides of the room, and a lot of the republican candidates are marching lock step behind this really conservative mantra that goes too far. and i don't think, do we have to work on medicare? of of course we do. do we need to tell seniors to go on the private insurance market in the future? i think that's something that really is not acceptable to most people in my state. they don't want seniors arm wrestling insurance companies as to whether their claim will be paid, figuring out if what they're doing will be covered. that is not something that they want. and i think that is one of the

issues that's helping our candidates. >> senator claire mccaskill, always great to see you. >> by the way, we were talking about the stupid things todd akin had said. there are a lot of observers think he can still win the race. this is a tight race to the end possibly, right, senator? >> yeah, and guys, watch the national republicans, they've all said it was unacceptable what he did, and i think scott brown and linda mcmann and a lot of candidates out there are really going to be in trouble if the national republicans go back on their word and come in here, try to fund todd akin. >> all right, senator claire mccaskill. more "morning joe" in just a moment. >> we had some good times together. boy, she's a tomcat. woo. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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it's amazing when you see where they ripped out the wall, there's copper piping right there.

can you imagine like having breakfast right here? you know what i mean? look at your view, look at your view in the morning, like yeah, i'm going to go out and conquer the world because i can damn near see it from here. motown right up the street. >> that was a scene from "detropia," the new documentary chronicling detroit. joining us, heidi ewing. great to have you on the show. >> where's clint eastwood. is he in this one? >> we asked him to be in the film, he declined. >> tell us what you set out to do first of all with this movie? >> i am originally from the detroit area. so going back year after year, seeing my family and friends, things seemed to be critical mass. being from the area, i wanted to explore with our cameras. went in there in october of 2009, i saw a city in real, real

distress that was -- i didn't even remember it to be in such a crisis. sort of waiting to find out, focus on people that have not left detroit, those that decided to stay and understand their world, see what it is like to survive in detroit. >> breaks my heart every time i go there. obviously private sector has to be part of a come back. we have a new governor that's a republican, new mayor, dave binge that's a democrat. what's your sense of commitment of bringing detroit back and how have they done so far? >> detroit has a history of corrupt mayors and had problems with politicians. but dave bing is doing his best, probably the most thankless job. he and the governor are co-managing detroit. i agree the private sector and entrepreneurship is the future of the city, relying on the big three to come back, it will never come back the way it was before. i think new industries, new

businesses and real sense of entrepreneurship is what detroit really needs and i hope they foster that. >> i am there now, new stadiums, new theaters, new restaurants downtown. what's missing? what are the next building blocks have to go into place to bring the city back? >> you have 139 square miles and only 700,000 people left, it is so vast. the public transportation system is barely existing. there's 650,000 detroiters that don't have access to the downtown area to the stadiums and midtown area, so really it is about finding a way that these communities can cross-over, interact, and how detroiters can benefit from revitalization taking place in midtown. >> who is the favorite character in the film? >> tommy stevens, owns the rave enlounge, entrepreneur, former school teacher, has the last business on the block on east side of detroit on shane street. he opens the place friday and saturday nights, night after night, even if there's only five patrons. detroit hamtramck plant is up

the street, he hoped the volt would do well, shifts would come back, didn't happen that way. this is an entrepreneur, a man refuses to leave the city, he could leave the city but doesn't. he keeps the bar open, buys houses, renovates them and has optimism that people like him need to stay in detroit for it to come back and i agree with him. >> where can people watch your film? >> it is playing in many cities now. it is limited release and opening in many, many cities every week because audiences seem to want to talk about the issues in the film like shrinking of the middle class and what's happening to our cities. so they put "detropia" the film dot com and many cities we are opening in now. >> we look at the pictures, it is really meek. looks like an amazing movie. every time we go there like mark, it does break our heart. we want to see detroit come back in a big way because it's, god, it is such an important part of

this country, the 20th century, detroit shaped the direction of of america in '41. detroit helped us get on the right track to beat the nazis and beat the germans. this is a great film. >> heidi, you've done something really important here. the documentary, "detropia," in select theaters. heidi ewing, the film's co-director. thank you so much. business before the bell, headlines with brian sullivan, keep it here on "morning joe." ♪ [ giggling ]

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his perch. cnbc's perch. it is his helicopter. >> no, it is not the helicopter, it is the jet pack! we were promised jet packs! >> yeah? >> yeah. >> you got the jet pack and the rest of us didn't. that's okay. we had to fire a couple of people but it is worth it because you're here for business before the bell. what's going on today on wall street? >> moving aside from that, what is going on on wall street. personal income as expected, no dramatic data out today thankfully. 39 days until the election here. kind of think the focus is more on politics. also as we talked about on the fiscal cliff, whether congress can get a deal done. want to watch this though. you guys are both probably snazzy iphone users as am i. many use research in motion

blackberry. the company is really struggling. stock crushed the last year. they came out with numbers, they lost money, but less than expected. >> had a pretty good quarter? >> good is relative. like when he came home with a c minus but had gotten a d the semester before, it is kind of that situation. blackberry, they're struggling, maybe not as bad as yesterday, it is a big challenge for an organization that on a device, this was the iphone, five, six years ago, you had to use the blackberry, but it shows you how fast technology changes things, right? so to quote monty python, research in motion, not dead yet. >> not dead yet, just a flesh wound. brian, sounds like you have the same high school report card as did i. >> as did i. brian sullivan, thank you very much. >> thanks, brian, have a great

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sam stein, you're good at reading the prompter, you're trained. >> did you have a prompter before? >> this is my first. >> i wanted halperin to do this. you want to do this. >> let's see how you do. you read the words right there. >> he can't do it! >> we have plenty of big global important news stories this week. none of them made the cut for willie's week in review. boom! >> at number three, pizza hut cone crust pizza, filled with cream cheese and honey coated chicken. >> pizza hut's latest experiment available only to the people of the middle east is a pizza whose crust is composed of tiny ice cream cones filled with cream cheese so diners can imagine eating the main course and dessert simultaneously. >> from the cone crust all the

way to your favorite top pizza. >> the ice cream cone pizza is only a fraction as offensive as the previous effort to offer best of both worlds compromise to customers that couldn't decide between dinner at pizza hut and mcdonald's. >> the new crown crust pizza, made with mini cheeseburgers. >> if travels take you to singapore, make time to swing by 7-eleven, throw a big gulp cup under the mashed potato and gravy dispenser, get yourself on the road. at number two, taxi fight. this is conflict resolution. new york style. in an iphone video posted online this week, we are treated to a couple of fellows in business casual attire slap fighting over a rush hour cab. after some grappling and nice box out move, the battle of

wills ended with an emphatic concession of defeat. and the number one story of the week. >> oh, my god, he's got it. >> while the presidential campaign whipped through decisive battleground states, and the handling of the consulate attack in libya, the country was focused squarely on the refs. >> it was almost as if you could run to the window and hear other football fans screaming in anger and disgust. >> the president called it terrible. the call was made by replacement referees. >> last night let's just say was not pretty. >> three weeks of shaky officiating by the nfl replacement officials culminated in monday night football debacle that cost the green bay packers a victory. >> the replay, and the fact it

was reviewed, it is awful. all i can say. >> with cheese heads in full revolt, the commander in chief stepped in with a tweet, presumably composed in the situation room, the would be commander in chief and his wisconsin running mate spoke up, too. >> did you watch that packer game last night? i mean, give me a break! >> paul was angry, he believes the green bay packers won and the referees took it from them. >> it pushed them to make a deal. they returned the refs to the field as heroes in stripes. ♪ did you ever know you're my hero ♪ >> with the nfl crisis solved, the next question is what the hell are we going to do about this? >> a new cheeseburger crown crust pizza, first of its kind deliciousness. ♪

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man, we had some good times together. boy, she's a tomcat. woo! >> wow. what about todd akin channelling owen wilson. mark halperin, what did you

learn on this action packed friday edition of "morning joe." >> i learned claire mccaskill shines on this program. >> she's the best. >> yeah. >> she also is the best like barack obama at picking her opponents. >> if you want a cheeseburger and peas a you don't have to have two meals. >> i don't have to choose. >> i can get them in one. >> i love that. also a friend of yours, incredible story. >> on the "today" show, adam greenberg, childhood friend, got hit in the back of the head seven years ago, never got a chance, thank god, florida marlins giving him a one day contract, gets another at bat. my heart goes out to him. so happy for him. >> what did you learn? >> i would comment on todd akin, but it wouldn't be ladylike, i will refrain. >> very good. mark halperin, if it is way too early, what time is it?

>> if it is way too early, it is "morning joe." now time for the daily diary of the american dream, "the daily rundown" with chuck todd starting now. 9-9-9, no, not the return of herman cain. nine states, nine polls, nine leads for president obama ahead of the first debate next week. we breakdown the newest numbers facing the romney campaign in the battleground states. controversy in one of those key states, and where else but florida where allegations of voter registration fraud hit a company hired by the republican national committee. could it have happened in any other battleground? and saying so long to the senate, jon kyl sits down for the latest installment in on-going conversations with senators that are saying farewell. see what he says about george w. bush and john mcc